Why Sports Fans are Sports Fans

Why Sports Fans are Sports Fans | Wait But Why:

To non-sports fans, caring about sports makes no sense.

If you’re a sports fan, here’s how non-sports fans view your love of your team:

A bunch of strangers in their 20s and 30s are paid to play games against each other that have no real world consequences, and you’ve decided that you care a ton about this. There are teams that must win and teams that must lose, and players that must play better than other players—and this is all critical.

Meanwhile, the players that must play well sometimes get traded to the teams that must lose, and now you want those players to play badly. In fact, the only thing you’re really rooting for is a certain set of jerseys, regardless of who happens to be wearing them.

Then there’s the fact that as you follow your team that must win, almost every season ends with them losing, leaving your face looking like this:

Or this:

Or this:

Then, every 30 years or so, this team you so badly want to win actually wins! 30 years and thousands of hours of time and dedication and finally, the ultimate goal is achieved—and then what happens? Some major change in your life? No, you go stand on the street and yell things, and then people start rioting, which makes no sense because they’re happy.

Then you spend a few days reading articles about the great victory, buy a t-shirt, and go on with your life. That’s it. That’s what it was all for.

Like I said, it’s an odd phenomenon.

And yet, one of the few things nearly every country in the world has in common is sports fandom. When something is both odd and universal, there’s gotta be something deeper going on.
As a big sports fan from a city full of frightening sports fan lunatics (Boston), I feel the need to take a shot at getting to the bottom of this.

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